Minds are in limited supply, and each mind has a limited capacity for memes, and hence there is considerable competition among memes for entry in as many minds as possible.

The problem is that no ethical system has ever achieved consensus. Ethical systems are completely unlike mathematics or science. This is a source of concern.

If the best the roboticists can hope for is the creation of some crude, cheesy, second-rate, artificial consciousness, they still win.

Philosophers' Syndrome: mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity.

I think religion for many people is some sort of moral viagra.

The theoretical fruits of deliberate oversimplification through idealization are not to be denied... Reality in all its messy particularity is too complicated to theorize about, taken straight. The issue is, rather (since every idealization is a strategic choice), which idealizations might really shed some light... which will just land us... diverting fairy tales.

Most people in the West who say they believe in God actually believe in belief in God.